Tinsel and trees aside, of all the things that stoke the embers of Yuletide, probably foremost is a heartwarming seasonal tale. Most often these are fabricated by Hollywood or gifted fiction writers ... but sometimes you find an uplifting story filled with Christmas spirit that just happens to be real. Here’s one, right from our own backyard ...
Harold and Pearl Taverner, along with their children, were among the last people to reside in the hamlet of Lewisham, southeast of Barkway. Most families had long since moved away by the 1930s, but the Taverners endured.
The decision to remain meant life was often a struggle. The Taverners were subsistence farmers in the truest sense of the term, living almost entirely off the land – the farm or the woods beyond. They never had a tractor, let alone a car, so everything was done by hand or horse power. Harold earned a few dollars guiding deer hunters in the autumn, rented out a cabin to anglers, and worked at logging camps during the winter.
Money problems always hung like a dark cloud over the family. Pearl had to stretch meager earnings as far as she could, but it never seemed enough. Sometimes, despite their best efforts, there just wasn’t any money.
Ironically, the heartbreak of “going without” would spawn a truly heartwarming, almost magical, memory.
While every year seemed a struggle, this one year – it probably would have been in the 1930s – was particularly trying. Things were dire. Pearl had always been able to tuck away some money for Christmas presents for the kids, but not this year. She had tried, but just couldn’t manage.
The thought of her little ones waking up to find no presents under the tree was devastating. So, on Christmas Eve, she scraped together some coins and handed them to Harold. Go to the store, she implored, and get some candy so the kids could still believe in Santa Claus.
Off Harold goes, crunching through the snow, no doubt eyeing the few measly coins and feeling miserable knowing just how little candy it would get him. He trudges into the store downcast, but his mood swings to euphoria when he finds himself staring at by a mound of gifts waiting for him, one per child. The presents had just arrived that day, courtesy of one of the wealthy American sportsmen Harold guided every year.
Harold scooped them up and raced home in excitement. Pearl broke out in happy tears at the sight of the gifts wrapped in ribbon and bows. A notably pious woman, Pearl thanked God for bringing some happiness to her children.
Thereafter, whenever a child questioned whether Santa existed Pearl would insist that he did. She knew he did, she would say, because she had witnessed his magic firsthand.
In 1950, aging and tiring, the difficulty of life in Lewisham wearing them down, Harold and Pearl moved the short distance to Barkway. They took with them the cherished memory of that Christmas long ago.
Pearl would retell the tale every holiday season for the remainder of her years, and it continues to be retold by descendants today.
Not every heartwarming Christmas story is found on The Hallmark Channel.
Andrew Hind can be reached at maelstrom@sympatico.ca
From the pages of Muskoka Life magazine.
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